SI cops had taken down several half-assed dark spell slingers, half a dozen vampires, seven or eight ravening trolls, and a demon that had manifested itself out of a mound of compost-heated garbage behind a pawnshop in Chinatown . SI could handle itself pretty well because they played careful, they worked together, and they understood that there were unnatural beings that sometimes had to be dealt with in ways not strictly in accordance with police procedure. Oh, and because they had a hired wizard to advise them about bad guys, of course. I liked to think that I had contributed too.

But I guess every bucket of fruit has something go rotten sooner or later. In SI the stinker was Detective Rudolph. Rudy was young, good-looking, clean-cut, and had slept with the wrong councilman's daughter. He had applied some industrial-strength denial to his experiences with SI despite freak encounters with monsters, magic, and human kindness. He had clung to a steadfast belief that everything was normal, and the realm of the paranormal was all make-believe.

Rudy didn't like me. Rudy didn't like Murphy. If the kid had sabotaged Murphy's investigation in order to curry favor with the folks in Homicide, maybe he was angling to get out of SI.

And maybe he'd lose a bunch of teeth the next time he walked through a quiet parking garage. I doubted Murphy would take that kind of backstabbing with good grace. I spent a moment indulging myself in a pleasant fantasy in which Murphy pounded Rudy's head against the door of her office at SI's home building until the cheap wood had a Rudolph-shaped dent in it. I enjoyed the thought way too much.

I gathered up a few things from around my apartment, including the antivenom potions Bob had helped me with. I checked on Bob while I was in the lab, and got a sleepy and incoherent response that I understood to mean that he needed more rest. I let him, went back upstairs, and called my answering service.

I had a message from Susan, a phone number. I called it, and a second later she answered. "Harry?"

"You've become clairvoyant. If you can do a foreign accent you could get a hot line."

"Like, sure, as if," Susan drawled ditzily.

" California isn't foreign," I said.

"You'd be surprised. How did things go?"

"Okay, I guess," I said. "I got a second."

"Michael?" she asked.

"Shiro."

"Who?"

"He's like Michael but shorter and older."

"Oh, uh. Good. I did the legwork."

I thought of some work I'd seen Susan's legs do before. But I only said, "And?"

"And the downtown Marriott is hosting an art gala this very night, including a gallery sale and a fundraiser auction for charity."

I whistled. "Wow. So lots of art and money moving around, changing hands, being shipped hither and yon."